Moment of Truth
by MrsTater
Summary: Shoulder to shoulder with Moody, Tonks took a firm stance and poised to cast her Patronus.


_**Title: **Moment of Truth_

_**Author:** MrsTater_

_**Rating:** PG_

_**Pairing/Featured Characters: **Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks (implied); Mad-Eye Moody_

_**Summary: **Shoulder to shoulder with Moody, Tonks took a firm stance and poised to cast her Patronus._

_**Author's Notes: **Originally written for the June/July 2006 RT Challenge at LiveJournal, this piece is set between Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It's not a part of my Transfigured Hearts series, but fits in the universe. And speaking of Transfigured Hearts, I do hope to have an update fairly soon, once the challenge ends, but until then, I've got some one-shots and miscellaneous challenge pieces to share. _

* * *

**Moment of Truth**

"It's so dark," Tonks whispered as she and Mad-Eye Moody Apparated into an alley near a Death Eater attack site Dumbledore had sent them to investigate. As Moody checked the area, she craned her neck for the full moon over the rooftops. The mist was so thick that not even hazy light filtered through.

She wondered if, wherever Remus was transformed tonight, he could see the moon.

"Damned Dementors," growled Moody beside her. His magical eye frantically scoped the fog. Could he see through it? "Area's crawling with 'em. Reckon they're trying to shake us off our investigation. Reckon that means there's information inside that house, if we can get past."

Wherever death and decay and destruction were, the Dementors were also.

Breeding.

Tonks shuddered. It was July, and she was cold.

Moody _hmphed_. "Swarm of Dementors are no match for a pair of Aurors, eh Tonks?"

"They travel in swarms?"

The scarred face looked craggier as he considered this. "Packs?"

Naturally Tonks' mind went to wolf packs. She shook her head, as though that would drive the accompanying images from her mind. "Gaggles. Gaggles of Dementors."

"Like geese?"

"Geese are scary."

Moody gave another _hmph_. It was hard to differentiate his grunts, but Tonks knew he was laughing when he said, "You're daft, girl."

His features set into grim lines as his magical eye roved over her hair. Tonks was getting so sick of all the looks that she was considering going to a Muggle hairdresser's for a dye job.

"You up for this?" Moody asked. "I can always call Shacklebolt—"

"No. You're right, a swarm of Dementors are no match for a pair of Aurors."

If Moody's gaze had never been described as soft, it would be now. "Problem with soldiering, Tonks, is that soldiers are people, with lives that don't stop for wartime."

His gruff tones seemed tender, and reminded her of Remus' softly rasping voice. Tonks' throat tightened.

"There's no shame in needing a little time to get personal things sorted," Moody went on, "especially not when dealing with enemies who feed on personal things."

Moody blurred as tears welled. Tonks blinked hard against them. If she caved, she wouldn't stand a chance against the Dementors.

Caving wouldn't help, anyway. Her personal things couldn't be sorted.

She'd nothing left to sort.

"Soldiering's all I've got!" Tonks blurted. She added in a hushed tone, but still vehement, "And I _have_ got it."

For a moment, Moody regarded her with that probing eye. Tonks knew she hadn't reassured him about her ability to fend off Dementors. She jutted her chin a little further and flung back her shoulders and felt quite dry-eyed again.

With a terse nod, Moody said, "Good girl."

He vigilantly led the way into the open street. Tonks followed, doing her best to close her mind to the despair that permeated the area. It clutched at her with icy fingers like the colourless hands of the Dementors themselves before they even reached site of the latest murder. The closer they came to the row house, the more difficult it became to deflect the atmosphere which threatened to siphon away even the vague impression of ever having been happy.

Tonks had always hated dealing with Dementors. Even the previous spring, when she'd practically floated through life as she fell deeper and deeper in love, those shifts guarding Azkaban, subjected for hours to their sapping presence had been her worst assignments she'd had since joining the Auror force.

The Dementors had made her see and hear and feel such horrifying things. They sucked joy out of memory, distorting the truth.

What would they do now that her experiences included the raw pain of heartbreak?

The house was restricted by Ministry wards, but before Tonks could cast the counter spells she'd accessed, the clouds parted and, illuminated by moonlight, Dementors descended like carrion birds.

Shoulder to shoulder with Moody, Tonks took a firm stance and poised to cast her Patronus.

She closed her eyes and searched for some image that was not associated with Remus calling off their relationship, or Remus leaving.

When was the last time she'd been really happy?

The ground shifted. Or seemed to. She felt the overstuffed cushions of her sofa, and Remus' ardent gaze above her as he kissed her. He'd just talked about marriage…

_I imagined our children_, his slightly hoarse voice rang in her ears.

In the midst of growing darkness, light glimmered. A future…

Tears pricked. She was so happy….

No.

Tonks felt herself leaning forward. There was a cold wind sucking at her, stealing through her body, grasping at her heart, snaking into her mind.

_We've been dreaming, Tonks. _

There was no such thing as happiness.

Love was a lie.

She was miserable.

It was the next day. The _very _day after that talk of marriage and children, and Remus was breaking up with her.

Without telling her _why_.

Cold. She was so cold. Frozen.

Dumbledore was whispering in her ears, the breath freezing the very blood in her veins, _Remus Lupin has bravely volunteered to embark upon a very dangerous, but very necessary spying mission…_

And then Remus' broken voice was saying goodbye, and he was only a back clad in a patched and fraying overcoat.

Walking away from her.

As her hair went mouse brown, which she couldn't change.

Somewhere, she had a vague impression of Moody calling to her to hold on, to cast her Patronus. Tonks' brain commanded her to raise her wand and utter the charm, but her arm felt leaden, and though Moody's Patronus attacked Dementor after Dementor, more came.

A snarling sound drowned out Moody.

Growling.

_Howling_.

Tonks' heart ached at the plaintive cries. Yet they simultaneously invoked pity and chilled her to the bone.

Remus. Those were Remus' sounds.

But that couldn't be. It was some other wolf…

Oh God – he was in danger. And in pain.

And alone. So alone. She had to help him, had to stop this and…

Remus was alone because he'd shut her out.

She wasn't enough for him. She couldn't be what he needed.

And he'd left her, left her all alone, when she needed him most…

He should be here with her. They were always partnered…

"_NO!_"

Tonks clutched her wand so tightly that she was amazed it didn't snap. She lifted her heavy arm into the air. The glowing tip of her wand illuminated the faceless Dementor. She had to send it packing, along with its swarm – no, his gaggle. That had made Moody laugh. Laughter was happy.

She and Remus had laughed a lot.

But the memories of jokes made her want to cry.

She loved him, and he'd left her, and he'd taken everything with him. He'd even taken her magic, and Merlin…

Her Patronus was a bleeding _chameleon_.

How on earth could she conjure a chameleon when she couldn't morph so much as a single hair?

She had nothing, _nothing_…

The Dementors loomed. Moody had stopped calling to her. All she could hear was the howling… The moon was obscured again. It was dark, so dark and cold, and they were closing in on her.

_This must be how Remus feels, when the wolf overtakes him. _

But the howls were angry.

He was fighting.

He _raged_ against the curse.

Tonks snapped to awareness in time to see her wand arm shoot out and to hear herself bellow, "_EXPECTO PATRONUM!"_

Silvery light flashed from her wand with such force that she had a sense of backlash. It seared through the Dementors like a flaming sword.

Her wand arm fell to her side as she gawked, panting, drenched in a cold sweat.

The Patronus Tonks had cast was _not_ a chameleon.

"Did _you_ do that?" came Moody's unmistakably astonished voice beside her.

Mute and paralyzed, Tonks gaped as a huge four-legged figure, obviously canine, loped about. It scattered the Dementors and tore through the curtain of mist to reveal the bright full moon. Her breath caught as the great snout pointed in the air, mouth opened in a howl.

"Is that…?"

Remus had said he was selfish to let her love him, said he wasn't enough for her….

…yet he'd given her this gift – this life-saving gift of the only thing in the world she could be sure of:

He loved her.

_Dear Merlin, he loved her. _

Miles away and not even in his right mind, Remus loved her so much that Tonks felt it right to the tips of her toes.

The ground beneath her feet felt steady, and she stood unafraid as the werewolf bounded toward her. It circled, wraith-like and graceful, around her body, nuzzling like a great gentle dog. With every touch, tingling warmth crept through her, thawing what the Dementors had frozen.

In a swirl of silver, the Patronus vanished back into the tip of her wand.

Moody's face implored her.

"Yes, Mad-Eye," Tonks whispered. "It's Remus."

* * *

_**Professor Lupin tells me that feedback is another way to conjure a graceful nuzzling werewolf Patronus. **_


End file.
